Southwark Council Leaseholders - do you tell the council about all your renovations?

[thursday]

Hi,

I bought a flat a good while ago where Southwark Council own the leasehold. I would like to do some work, now, to the flat but looking at the webiste, we have to ask for all sorts of permission and submit plans to get the work approved. And of course, this comes with a fee. It seems I can't even change a kitchen cupboard without permission. Have any of you any expereince in renovating your homes - and did you always ask permission first?

Cheers,

Thursday

[James Barber]

Leaseholders having to seek the permission of their freeholders to conform to the specifics of your lease is pretty standard property practice - whether private freeholders or council freeholders.

Check your lease and if you need the freeholder to approve I would encourage you to do so. If you get stuck or find council officials not responding I would encourage you to engage one of your local councillors.

[trizza]

Unless it's structural or likely to have a significant impact on your neighbours I would not bother. Southwark will just end up charging you for a licence for alterations. This will take time and you never know what petty points they will raise.

Some on here are likely to say this is risky because it's in breach of the terms of the lease and could have an impact when you sell etc. etc.

Technically they are right. However, having sat on the management board of a company that owned the freehold of a large block in Southwark I can tell you that we did not have the slightest interest in investigating people who may have had work done without permission unless it was going to impact the rest of the block - an example being one person who installed a mezzanine floor in their flat which was installed into a load bearing wall. I would be surprised if Southwark adopted a different approach in practice - althought they would never admit to it.

[Pugwash]

A work colleague was buying an ex council property and had trouble securing a mortgage as the heating system had not been approved of by the council and they ended up waiting months for the council surveyor to check out the property. The BS surveyor had to recheck for the mortgage but they had to do some changes. I think it was something to do with the flue pipe for gas central heating was not sited where the council would have wanted it to be.

[Siduhe]

I pulled out of a sale of an ex council property (a while ago) when it became clear that none of the improvements made by the owner had been reported or approved by the Council. Nothing major but Southwark made it very clear they wouldn't necessarily retrospectively approve anything and wanted a big fee to do so in a timely fashion. Made the sale unviable for me.

[tiddles]

I think you would find it quite difficult to find anyone at the council to deal with this. You can call their call centre and they will log your details on 'the system' (which no one looks at) and then nothing will happen. I would crack on and make your changes - as long as it is nothing structural!!

[buddug]

Ooops! Meant to reply to thread from someone asking whether they should buy a southwark freehold flat, not this one! Sorry...

[Sue]

:(

[thursday]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll look into the process a bit more, small stuff doesn't seem worth asking about. Appreciate your help. Thanks